Turkey pomegranate export season

Hicaznar runs from about October to December, and stored fruit ships into the new year. Turkey and Egypt are the two Mediterranean origins a European buyer sees in those months, a few weeks apart.

Hicaznar is the Turkish pomegranate: 85–90% of production, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. The season opens in September on earlier varieties such as Early Wonderful, and Hicaz picking follows in October. Exporters normally ship until the middle of March, out of store, so the tail of the window above is stored fruit rather than a late harvest.

The crop is Mediterranean and Aegean. Turkey grew 703,425 tonnes in 2024, and Antalya alone produced 175,574 tonnes, about a quarter of it; Mersin, Adana, Muğla and Denizli follow. It exported 148,013 tonnes worth $156 million that year, about a fifth of the crop. The main buyers are Russia, Germany, Iraq, Ukraine, the UK and the Netherlands. Which one leads depends on the year: Russia was first for January to October 2024, Germany for the whole of 2025.

Pomegranate is one of the most forgiving things in a reefer. It stores for months and it does not bruise easily, which is why the shipping season stretches so far past the harvest, and why nobody watches the container. On this row the risk is demurrage rather than quality.

Forgiving is not the same as cold-proof. UC Davis guidance gives 5°C as the minimum safe temperature for up to eight weeks, 7°C for longer storage, and 90–95% relative humidity. Fruit held below 5°C for more than four weeks develops chilling injury.

Weather decides the volume, not the timing. Frost in March and April 2025, then heat and water shortages, cut that year’s crop by an estimated 35% on the season before. The 2024 frost had also damaged the trees, so they flowered less the following spring. Rain at harvest cracks the fruit: the 2023/24 season lost fruit to rain damage, while the dry 2024 season had almost no cracking but smaller sizes. When the crop is short, exporters find sourcing difficult from January, and the season ends before March.

Residues are the other thing a European buyer checks. A 2025 study tested 342 pomegranate samples from Turkey’s three main growing regions. It found residues in 72.8% of them, and 40.6% of those with residues were above EU maximum residue limits.